Pornography In The UK

[R. Richard]

Those Literotica members who live in the UK may want to tone down their stuff a bit. Comment?

Gov't to outlaw extreme, violent pornography

LONDON (AFP) - Watching and possessing images of rape and sexual torture is to be made a criminal offence, punishable with a jail term of up to three years.

The plan follows a campaign by two MPs and the mother of a schoolteacher who was killed in 2003.

Violent Internet pornography was implicated in the trial of the man convicted of her murder.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said there was an urgent need to tackle the problem because such images were becoming more easily available on the Internet and control of their distribution more difficult.

The new laws -- which will cover pornography online and offline -- will ban possession of images depicting "scenes of extreme sexual violence", plus other obscene material like bestiality or necrophilia.

For example, it would cover violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in "serious and disabling injury".

Britain's Obscene Publications Act 1959 currently bans the publication and distribution of such material, but not its possession.

Under the proposals, the maximum penalty for publication, distribution and possession for gain of obscene pornography would also be increased from three to five years' imprisonment.

The Home Office said they did not intend to target people who accidentally access obscene pornography nor those working within the mainstream adult entertainment industry, which works within existing obscenity laws.

The project is in response to a consultation launched last year and comes after a 50,000-signature petition against extreme Internet sites promoting violence against women for sexual gratification was presented to parliament.

 

[English Lady]

Those Literotica members who live in the UK may want to tone down their stuff a bit. Comment?

Gov't to outlaw extreme, violent pornography

LONDON (AFP) - Watching and possessing images of rape and sexual torture is to be made a criminal offence, punishable with a jail term of up to three years.

The plan follows a campaign by two MPs and the mother of a schoolteacher who was killed in 2003.

Violent Internet pornography was implicated in the trial of the man convicted of her murder.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said there was an urgent need to tackle the problem because such images were becoming more easily available on the Internet and control of their distribution more difficult.

The new laws -- which will cover pornography online and offline -- will ban possession of images depicting "scenes of extreme sexual violence", plus other obscene material like bestiality or necrophilia.

For example, it would cover violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in "serious and disabling injury".

Britain's Obscene Publications Act 1959 currently bans the publication and distribution of such material, but not its possession.

Under the proposals, the maximum penalty for publication, distribution and possession for gain of obscene pornography would also be increased from three to five years' imprisonment.

The Home Office said they did not intend to target people who accidentally access obscene pornography nor those working within the mainstream adult entertainment industry, which works within existing obscenity laws.

The project is in response to a consultation launched last year and comes after a 50,000-signature petition against extreme Internet sites promoting violence against women for sexual gratification was presented to parliament.

Sounds fair enough to me.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Who watches "Snuff" Porno anyway?

 

[wehstar]

I saw this news item about an hour ago. Slightly concerned about what exactly is and is not going to be OK, but at the end of the day they would have to have reason to suspect you of being a weirdo anyway.

 

[NoJo]

It's hard for some foreigners to uunderstand that we're perfectly happy to sacrifice some degree of personal liberty for the sake of our security.

We're a law-abiding people.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

It's hard for some foreigners to uunderstand that we're perfectly happy to sacrifice some degree of personal liberty for the sake of our security.

We're a law-abiding people.

What?

How does banning film of torture and rape make you more secure?

Next it will be books. Then speech. Then thought. Then you're in a world of a mess with no way out.

 

[English Lady]

What?

How does banning film of torture and rape make you more secure?

Next it will be books. Then speech. Then thought. Then you're in a world of a mess with no way out.

How on earth do you make that leap?

 

[Dragonteeth]

we're perfectly happy to sacrifice some degree of personal liberty for the sake of our security.

I dont think banning BDSM related images is going to increase your security or mine. People who want to look at these images will.

If the man in question had been a custom car fan and hidden the body in the boot of his car.

Would we be looking down both barrels of a universal ban on cars?

 

[Liar]

I dont think banning BDSM related images is going to increase your security or mine. People who want to look at these images will.

If the man in question had been a custom car fan and hidden the body in the boot of his car.

Would we be looking down both barrels of a universal ban on cars?

Is really "banning BDSM realted images" what's on the menu here?

 

[English Lady]

Is really "banning BDSM realted images" what's on the menu here?

Bingo!

 

[Dragonteeth]

Is really "banning BDSM realted images" what's on the menu here?

Yes,

and the real scary issue is that they don't seem to differentiate between images that are consensual and those that are not...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

How on earth do you make that leap?

It's a natural progression of politics and conservatives, morality must be legislated to keep you secure from what they(conservatives) believe is immoral.

 

[kendo1]

There was a song by Springstein I seem to remember.

Porn in the U of K...

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

They're wanting to ban BDSM images? Damn! That sucks! I have several British friends who won't be too happy about that.

 

[Tom Collins]

I'll never understand why these people think that people do things like that because of movies/pictures/music/every other scape goat. This kind of shit was happening way before any of that stuff existed. Do they think the Vikings were violent, raping pillagers because they saw it in a movie and thought it looked like fun? Was De Sade a sick fuck because he read it in a book...no, he wrote the damned book on it, man. People will do this kind of thing no matter if they're exposed to it or not. Proof of that is that the material exists at all. It wouldn't exists if people weren't already doing all that stuff to begin with. It's not like some Hollywood guy thought it up from whole cloth for Christ's sake.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I'll never understand why these people think that people do things like that because of movies/pictures/music/every other scape goat. This kind of shit was happening way before any of that stuff existed. Do they think the Vikings were violent, raping pillagers because they saw it in a movie and thought it looked like fun? Was De Sade a sick fuck because he read it in a book...no, he wrote the damned book on it, man. People will do this kind of thing no matter if they're exposed to it or not. Proof of that is that the material exists at all. It wouldn't exists if people weren't already doing all that stuff to begin with. It's not like some Hollywood guy thought it up from whole cloth for Christ's sake.

Indeed.

 

[kendo1]

Mm.

The Marquis de Sade watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Somehow, I think not.

 

[oggbashan]

Tonight's TV news reports were worrying.

Their reports of the proposed law appear to make no distinction between fake, consensual, staged and real infliction of pain. The images they did show were very mild.

Asphyxia is one of the categories covered, whether real, fake or self-induced.

There is no acknowledgement that mainstream movies cover much more graphic violence and abuse than most downloaded videos and images. Downloading Silence of the Lambs could lead to a three year jail sentence as the proposals are currently drafted. As for Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Don't even think of looking at it.

Like our gun laws, they are likely to penalise the law-abiding majority and drive the rest underground into the clutches of organised crime.

BDSM and breathplay may be OK between consenting adults, but not if they take pictures of it and someone else downloads the images.

Og

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

It seems to me there will be just as much trouble policing this Porn law in the UK as the US has policing Kiddy Porn. You download it. You watch it. And if you get arrested for anything, they look at your computer and find it.

They are legislating the wrong end. If they really want to stop this they need to police the producers and distributors. That makes the job about 10,000,000,000 times easier.

 

[CharleyH]

Don't live in th UK, but a bump is in order. What is your take on the article, R. Richard?

 

[CharleyH]

It's hard for some foreigners to uunderstand that we're perfectly happy to sacrifice some degree of personal liberty for the sake of our security.

We're a law-abiding people.

LOL - even in sex? OH - DUH (me). The ENGLISH! (smacks head).

 

[oggbashan]

It seems to me there will be just as much trouble policing this Porn law in the UK as the US has policing Kiddy Porn. You download it. You watch it. And if you get arrested for anything, they look at your computer and find it.

They are legislating the wrong end. If they really want to stop this they need to police the producers and distributors. That makes the job about 10,000,000,000 times easier.

A large amount of the really nasty stuff available here has been produced in Russia, Japan, China and in the Eastern European states. The UK law cannot cover videos produced beyond our borders until it is downloaded onto a UK citizen's computer.

Much of the sex trade in the UK is staffed by women from the former communist states, often working under duress. One of our local brothels was raided this year. The women working there were from rural China. They had been told that their husbands and children back home would be killed if they refused to be prostitutes. That would be a much more worthwhile target for action than digital images of violent sex that may or may not have been real.

Og

 

[CharleyH]

A large amount of the really nasty stuff available here has been produced in Russia, Japan, China and in the Eastern European states. The UK law cannot cover videos produced beyond our borders until it is downloaded onto a UK citizen's computer.

Much of the sex trade in the UK is staffed by women from the former communist states, often working under duress. One of our local brothels was raided this year. The women working there were from rural China. They had been told that their husbands and children back home would be killed if they refused to be prostitutes.

Og

I disagree, Og. Please quote your sources.

 

[Oblimo]

Anyone have a link to the text of the statute?

For example, it would cover violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in "serious and disabling injury".

That really doesn't tell us much. The case law surrounding the Obscene Publications Act of 1954 would also explain more. From first blush, it sounds like it only covers snuff, which is a no-no in several jurisdictions on this side of the pond, too, but only an examination of the case law will tell us exactly what it covers, and whether Zeb's fear of a slippery, astroglided slope to the Obscene Thoughts Act of 2010 has any modicum of merit.

Zeb, help us out by finding us a link to the text of UK's Constitution, would you?

 

[Oblimo]

As for Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Don't even think of looking at it.

Well, making owning a DVD of Hostel a crime may not be such a bad thing.